Strike Dear Mistress and Cure His Heart
by Mikel Midnight
Summary: Frankenstein gathers together agents of S.H.A.D.E. to battle Mistress Mary, evil counterpart of Mary Marvel, across a thousand dimensions of space-and-time.


Leather strikes stone.

In France, the Marquis De Sade traverses the alleyways, whispering his seditious statements, leaving chaos and mad orgies in his wake.

Leather strikes stone.

In the far distant skies, Grimbor the Chainsman's energy chains circle the planet, as he seizes its space stations and exploratory craft, imprisoning astronauts and cosmonauts .

Leather stikes stone.

In Spain, no one expected the return of the Spanish Inquisition, and with Torquemada at their spearhead, the streets echo with screams and run with blood.

Leather strikes stone.

In the United States, another man by the name of Torquemada leads his Terminators in a purge of the nation, visiting unspeakable horrors on any who do not please him, chanting "Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave!"

Leather strikes stone.

The echo of a woman named Marion turns to her husband. "George … we're in danger."

There was barely a shift in the darkness, and from it came a voice which was more felt than heard. "Yes. And there is a monster at the door."

A powerful fist begins to pound at the door, its owner not noticing at first the bandages which creep out from the bottom of the door of the seemingly empty mansion. The bandages recoil like a pair of cobras, then quickly wrap around the immense creature. The figure struggles to no avail, and finally Marion unspools enough from its head to free its mouth. "Let me go, blast you!"

George reshapes the bandages into a head so that he can speak to it. "What do you want from us?"

The creature scowls. "Mr. and Mrs Detke, I am here because I need your help. The government organisation S.H.A.D.E. tried to contact the Doom Patrol, but had no luck … so they sent some emmisaries to their U.K. branch S.T.R.I.K.E. to enlist me and some others … but they found your address in the Doom Patrol files and we think we need your unique abilities."

"The Doom Patrol?" Marion loosens her grip slightly, forming her own bandages into a face. "So who are you, you big green galoot?"

"I have taken the name Frankenstein, after my creator," he says, his craggy face almost breaking into a smirk when he sees their reactions. "I see you have heard of me."

Mysteries of Shazam / Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE: "Strike Dear Mistress and Cure His Heart"

"Allow me to introduce the other members of our legion of monsters," Frankenstein said as he walked the Bandage People to the borrowed Aviosub, to meet a pair of men, one of normal appearance and the other shockingly pale. "This is Larry Talbot, a new enlistee to S.T.R.I.K.E. and our world. And this is David, or Dagon, who operates sometimes under the codename Nightrider."

"Monsters … is that all we are to you? Monsters?" George looks distressed by this. "We were members in good standing of the Doom Patrol, we're … we're … protectors and guardians, not … "

Larry Talbot raises a hand in a peacemaking gesture. "Mr. Detke, please," he says. "As he said, I am a newcomer to this world, myself, and trust me my … initiation into it was a horror beyond belief." He shudders at the memory of months of torture in the underground land of the the Tylwydd Têg. "But I am here now to help humanity if I can. All of us are."

"I –had- knocked at the front door," Frankenstein reminds them.

George and Marion look at each other, slightly mollified. "Okay, okay … tell us what we have to do."

Dagon glances over at Frankenstein, who nods, and he says, "I was picked for this team because I'm a time-traveler of sorts. Something is attacking the time stream, causing hellacious and perverse fluctations. A lot of people are getting hurt."

"A time traveler?" Marion looked enchanted. "Do you have a time machine, like in the movie?"

Dagon shakes his head. "No, but we have this, courtesy of Frankenstein's time with the Seven Soldiers of Victory." He held out a small box in his hand. It gleamed metallic gold, had a dial on one side next to the base, and seemed to contain an incredibly intricate clockwork mechanism. "It seems to be able to take us where we need to go."

George unspools a pair of bandages to wrap around the object, drawing it close enough to see. "Interesting." He turns it side to side. "So let's see what it can do?"

Frankenstein retrieves the box, and sets it into a socket built into the dashboard of the Aviosub. With surprising deftness, he carefully turns the dial at the side. When he releases it, the wound-up clockwork starts to emit a repetitive pinging sound, and soon there is an explosion near the nose of the vehicle, accompanied by a glowing tube which seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

"Whoah Nellie!" Marion shouts in surprise as Frankenstein activates the Aviosub, sending it down the tunnel. She marvels at the flashing gold which seems to pass on the side, and grips her chair tightly when they begin to approach the end of the tunnel, which seems to open up into empty space.

The tube closes behind the Aviosub as it departs, stranding them in space … and against the starry backdrop stood a massive tower of stone, which seemed to descend impossibly far beneath them without any evident planetary base, and to ascend impossibly high above.

"By all the gods and demons," Frankenstein mutters.

George looks at Dagon. "Is this what time traveling was like for you before?"

Dagon shakes his head. "No … I've never … "

"I think I know what it is," Frankenstein says quietly, his normally impenetrable composure shaken. "It's the Rock of Eternity. It's a … a sort of magical representation of our timestream." He furrows his brow, "So we're not even in physical space." He moves to open one of the hatch doors, Lyle Talbot shouting at him and lunging at his arm in an attempt to stop him … only to find that there appears to be a breathable atmosphere.

"There's air here?" Talbot says, wonderingly.

Marion walks over to the hatchway. "It's so beautiful," she whispers. "And here is where we're needed? The … Rock of Eternity is in danger, somehow?"

As if in response, space is split by a sound. Leather strikes stone. The Rock of Eternity seems to shudder in response. Talbot groans, falling to his hands and knees. George and Marion step forward to help, but then fall back, appalled, as the man begins to change form, transforming into a great wolf. The beast looks as if it is about to lunge, when Frankenstein responds quickly by turning the dial on the box, setting it before the wolf. The altered Talbot immediately seems to calm, and partially reverts to a humanoid form, still hirsute and clawed, but calmer. He picks up the box and looks into it.

"It seems to have that effect on monsters," Frankenstein says, and he proceeds to manoeuvre the Aviosub around to attempt to locate the source of the sound.

Floating in space is a young woman, whose face is imparted with a beauty which would not have shamed the goddesses Aurora or Aphrodite save for its expression of malicious glee. She is clad in a skintight outfit of shiny black leather, emblazoned with a golden lightning bolt across her torso. In her hand is a riding crop. Whiplash girlchild in the dark, she strikes out at the rock with her crop with such force that the immense structure seems to quake in response.

Frankenstein brings the Aviosub around to hover, and strides out onto the wing, the rest of the team following. "Pardon me Miss," he says, "who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing?"

She deigns to notice them for the first time, and swivels in the air so that she is slightly above them, looking down. "My name is Mary Mayhem … though you may call me Mistress Mary. I found this marvelous Rock of Eternity and thought it just needed to be whipped into shape. Change the timeline to make a world that would be just right for me to live in."

"It's … it's -our- timeline," Dagon says indignantly. "You have to leave it alone!"

"That is no way to address your Mistress." She raises an eyebrow, eying him coldly. "Speak so slightly down on your bended knee. Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather."

Frankenstein snarls, "I have no time for tyrants, however they are dressed." He draws forth his steam guns and fires at her.

Mary screams, more in indignation than pain. "I gave you your chance to submit. Taste the whip, now plead for me." She swings her crop at Dagon, who transforms into mist.

George and Marion unspool themselves, wrapping around her limbs in order to bind her. She wrestles against them, and finally her eyes fall on Talbot. "A Father Box!" she snarls. "You would use that against me?" She swings her crop at it, the impact striking the metal which seems to scream in response, as if the clockwork mechanism were alive.

Talbot's tranformation completes into an immense and savage wolf. He lunges at Mistress Mary's throat, and reality seems to shatter around them.

They find themselves in a strange, mutated landscape. In battle against a strange army of mutated lizard-men is a barechested man in a loincloth who seems to radiate an aura of power; he seems to be accompanied by a group of knights in medieval armor. Mary gasps on seeing him. "Sovereign?"

The herculean man senses he is being addressed, and turns to her. His response is muted as Mary finds her head wrapped in bandages, and she feels Dagon's fangs at her throat.

She claws the bandages away, eyes seeking out someone she considered an elder, and she found herself staring at a cartoonishly colorful landscape. "DeSade's balls!" she curses, hurling Dagon and Talbot away from her. Frankenstein swings a fist into her, grunting in pain at the impact against her steel-hard skin, and she sees an army of bunnies glowing with atomic energy descend on her from the skies.

She screams in outrage, ascending into the sky. Dagon follows, and the Bandage People unspool themselves to match her height. Her ankles are bound and Dagon hurtles towards her, taking advantage of her disorientation to crash her into the ground.

They are in a desolate landscape, blasted lifeless as the moon. A naked man wearing a long cloak hovers over them, peering at them through blind, banadaged eyes. Frankenstein slams his fists into her skull repeatedly, Talbot snarling and tearing at her torso. She reaches for the wolf and grabs handfuls of fur, throwing him into George, causing them to tangle up. She feels a curious, psychic touch in her mind from the blind man.

She tries to concentrate to repel him, when they find themselves in a restored world, middle America somewhere in the 1960s. They briefly wonder whether they are in the past of one of their own worlds, before they realise the gathering crowd are as hirsuit and lupine as Larry Talbot. Mary falls back, appalled, before Talbot leaps on her once again. Her fists start to close around his throat, when she feels a pair of super-strong hands braced at her wrists. She glances up to see a young wolf-girl clad in a short blue dress with a red cape, her uniform emblazoned with a large red 'S'. The girl forces her to release Talbot, and a blow from her fists send Mary reeling.

As Frankenstein, Dagon, George, and Marion hoard her in order to press their advantage, their battle is joined to another. Krypton Woman, grown immense and insane, tears across the city of Metropolis. Gotham Woman and Themyscaria Man battle her valiently. The former turns her dark eyes to the newcomers, wondering whether they will be able to give aid. George and Marion catch Mary in a slingshot, hurtling her at the superpowerful titan, who bats her away into a brick wall.

She staggers to her feet. The architecture around them seems restored, but also different … taller, more solemn, somehow fascistic. A bespectacled man with mild-mannered features approach them. He is wearing a conservative blue suit with a white shirt and a red tie; around his shoulders is a red cape with a gold 'S' displayed on the back. He aims a gun in their direction and shouts, in strangely accented English, at them all to remain still. When Frankenstein rebuffs him the man fires, and his face begins to shift through a variety of nightmarish visages.

Frankenstein recoils at the impact, and when he re-orients himself they are in the deepest African jungle. Mary attempts to take advantage of his distraction by swinging at him violently with her riding crop. Dagon blocks the impact, the effort shattering his arm. He cries out in pain, though Mary's expression of satisfaction turns sour as she sees him heal automatically. "Will you heal as well when I strike your head from your body," she growls, when the jungle is rent by another cry … a man's voice raised in some kind of animalistic summoning. From the sky descends a half-naked man with wild, unkept hair and red glowing eyes, an 'S' scrawled in blood across his chest.

George and Marion attempt to blind her, wrapping themselves around her head, while the other three attack her with fists and claws. When she manages to pull her eyes free, they are back in a city under dark of night. Dagon scowls as he looks around. "I know this place … are we home?" Looking up, they see a large, undistinguishable figure standing at the end of the alley. The figure is wrapped in a dark cape and hood, and stands with his hands on his hips in a defiant stance as the sun is falling and he casts an eerie shadow over the combatants. "Batman!" Dagon says. "Do you remember me? Nightrider … from the Team Titans?"

The figure approaches them swiftly through the darkness. "Not particularly," he says, and he opens his mouth to reveal razor-sharp fangs. He lunges towards Mary who screams despite herself, and then they are in daylight once more.

They are on the side of a great hill, a rough-hewn stone village above them. They hear the sound of metal striking metal, and look up to see two men standing above them. Both are dark-haired and clad in furs like barbarians, though one wears a tunic died blue with a red 'S' on his chest, the other clad similarly in red and ensigned with a gold lightning bolt. "You shall not defeat me this time, Kal-El," says the latter, as he presses forward. The other grins, parrying, "We shall see, Marv-El … hold, step-brother … who approaches? Is this some warrior maiden who has taken your sign?"

Mary looks up at him desperately. He is not the Captain Mayhem she knows, or even that old Uncle Mayhem, but she realises she is closer to her own world, here. "Brother," she cries out beseechingly, "help me!"

Before the other can respond, they are in a nuclear wasteland. Ruined cities are off in the distance, and the sparse vegetation is crumpled and sickly. Frankenstein growls, "The only hope for you is surrender." He and his companions leap into an attack, and as they force her backwards she slips on a bundle of cloth. There is a red uniform, military in style with gold trim, and a lightning bolt which resembles her own and Marv-El's, and a smaller white uniform with a styled letter in green on the front, and a matching green cape. She looks skyward, to see a man who resembles Captain Mayhem, nude and in the embrace of a similarly nude woman with long blonde hair. The man spies the group, and his expression is one of astonishment. "Lyla?" he asks his partner, and then they are gone.

A thousand dreams that would awake them pass by … nineteen hundred and fifty-three dimensions of space-and-time ... before they find themselves in a misty, shapeless land. Mary, even her superhuman form tired and weary from endless shifts and battles, falls.

Frankenstein looks around. "What is this place? It is not Carcosa, yet it has some terrible familiarity."

"One tends to forget Limbo after one has been away," says a familiar voice. They whirl around, shocked, to see a couple standing behind them. One, the speaker, is a middle-aged man, his features close to that of Mary's brother, although he is wearing a formal black suit, with only his bright red shirt and gold lightning-bolt tie clip as splashes of color. An adolescent girl is with him, wearing a homespun red dress which is also marked with the now-familiar lightning bolt.

Talbot growls, low and deep in his throat, and Dagon eyes the man warily. "You wear her insignia," Frankenstein said, "are you her ally then?"

The man laughs quickly at this, and seeing his response the girl giggles. "No, no, not at all. She comes from one of the negative zones … they are quite the exception rather than the rule. Most of the people who wear the lightning bolt are quite on your side." He extends a hand. "My name is Steven Thomas … also known as Captain Shazam. This little lady is Freckles Marvel."

She curtseys, "We're quite pleased to meet you."

Frankenstein nods, slowly. Although he has never met them but he knows of the Capatin Marvel and Mary Marvel of his own world … and has read files on the Crime Syndicate of Amerika and their allies as well. "We welcome your assistance, then."

"When she wakes up, she will attempt to ruin your world the way she tried to ruin ours," Dagon says.

Captain Shazam shakes his head. "She can't do anything to affect Limbo. Her own world has undergone a Crisis recently, which makes it much more difficult for her to ever leave here."

"And how about us?" Marion asks. "Are we to be stranded here as well?"

"You came here with a Mother Box, right?" says Freckles Marvel. "Orion will be able to help … he's … oh there he is."

A shadow passes over them, and a man descends from the air. He is wearing red tights, and a mask which is open to his hairline. A large blue 'O' is on his chest. "Let me see her … I can hear she's wounded."

Talbot's ears furrow back, but he hands over the damaged clockwork device. Orion's eyes widen. "By Highfather, I have never seen … " He removes from his belt another cube, smaller and more streamlined than the one designed by Caligari. He places his cube atop the other, and it begins to ping soothingly. Golden light infuses the larger cube, repairing its damage. He hands it back to Talbot.  
"This will guide you home."

"Thank you … thank you all," Dagon says, and he watches as Frankenstein activates the Mother Box. The boom tube appears in response, and the impromptu team returns to their homeworld to try to undo the damage Mary had wrought.

Freckles looks up at her companion. "What's going to happen when she meets the Monster League of Evil which were stranded here by Captain Thunder?"

Captain Shazam shrugs. "We're just going to have to prevent that from happening as long as possible … give the timelines an opportunity to heal. We were only able to anticipate them in the first place because their crosstime translations mirrored the earlier battle, decades ago. With any luck … if that ever happens … we may be able to gather together a third pairing to run interference."

Orion salutes them. "That will truly be a battle to end all battles," he says, taking to the air once more.

Captain Shazam squeezes Freckles' hand affectionately. "Come on. It's time to go back to Pictopia."


End file.
